Analysis of Romans 5-8
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Analysis of Romans 5:12 - 8:17
Submitted to Professor Polk
BIBL425_B05_202340
By Cale Schueler
October 9th, 2023
In Romans verse 5:-12-8:17, we see Paul talking about a new chapter in history. We see
that there is a new hope in the world that man can be reunited with God. The acts that Jesus did
on the cross changed the world and Paul is bringing this news to all who are willing to hear. We
will look at the peace and hope that is brought through Jesus's sacrifice on the cross and how
much greater his actions are that redeem us of the actions of Adam that separated us from God
because of sin. Secondly, how we were all dead to sin and there was no way to live but through
Jesus Christ, we find resurrection just like him. In this resurrection, we have new lives, no longer
slaves to ourselves and our desires but for righteousness like Christ lived. Next, we were all
unable to live up to the standards of the Law that sin hindered us from upholding and being set
free from the impossible standards that we could never reach. And lastly, how we are now able to
have life in the spirit and be slaves dead to the flesh. Through Jesus alone, each one of us can
receive the free gift of God that saves and transforms us to living for righteousness free from the
clutches of sin and death.
In chapter five Paul talks about how sin and death came to be and the consequences that
followed. When Adam bit from the apple, they had sinned from God but also became aware of
good and evil. From sin, came death that would reign over all of humanity it says in verse
fourteen of chapter five, “Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of
Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern
of the one to come” (Romans 5:14).
1
Paul then moves on to the comparison of both Adam and
Jesus Christ. He uses the repercussions of Adam on humanity as a parallel to the similar impact
of Christ. Because of Adam and his disobedience all of humanity had been cast into darkness
because of sin. Death, disease, destruction, and many other byproducts of sin had power and
authority over us but that all changed when Jesus arrived.“Through the obedience of the one
man, Christ, God overthrew the dominion of sin and death that the transgression of the one man,
1
“Romans 5-8:17 NIV - - Bible Gateway.” n.d. Www.biblegateway.com. Accessed October 10,
2023.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+5-8%3A17&version=NIV
.
Adam (5:12), produced. God inaugurated the reign of grace that leads to eternal life through
Christ (5:21)”.
2
Paul goes on to say that although the condemnation that was brought onto
mankind due to his actions does not compare to the wonderful gift of grace and eternal life that
Jesus makes available for anyone that should choose to believe in him. The Law that made us
aware of what we were not supposed to do made us all the more guilty of sin. So even though
God gave us the law to follow we were all incapable so sin still reigned over the world. Grace
was needed so that we could reconnect with God like before the Garden of Eden and sin. That is
exactly what Jesus did, he bridged the gap with grace and now it is the very thing that reigns over
our lives now. No longer does sin cast us down because of our shortcomings, we are deemed
righteous not because of anything that we can still say or do but because Jesus who has all
authority, says so.
Paul raises a common question still thought by many to this day. Should we continue to
sin because of our free gift of grace? Paul gives us a clear answer, “By no means! We are those
who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
Or don’t you know that all of us who
were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Romans 6:2-3)?
3
Paul is saying
that if you truly believed and decided to follow Christ you would not continue in your old
behavior intentionally. In our old life, our body, soul, mind, and spirit are not alive. Sin in our old
lives did not have the same effect because we were unaware of it, we were blinded by it,
separated from God and our true purpose. But when we commit and have faith something
changes, when we become believers we now then have the Holy Spirit inside of us and when we
2
David E. Garland,
Romans: An Introduction and Commentary
, ed. Eckhard J. Schnabel, vol. 6,
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: IVP; IVP Academic: An Imprint of
InterVarsity Press, 2021), 188.
3
“Romans 5-8:17 NIV - - Bible Gateway.” n.d. Www.biblegateway.com. Accessed October 10,
2023.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+5-8%3A17&version=NIV
.
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sin we grieve the Holy Spirit. You now have the knowledge of what is right and wrong so to
continue sinning will go against the will of the Holy Spirit inside of you. This is why Paul brings
up Baptism, you have gone through the transformation just like Christ did, and now continue to
live like Christ. “Believers are baptized into Christ, are baptized in His death, which means
believers are drowned in Christ, into the death of Him. And by the resurrection of Christ, those
who die in Christ will also experience a resurrection with Christ. From this resurrection with
Christ, this is the faithful person who has a new life and starts walking in that new life”.
4
He
concludes in chapter six that if we believe to be dead to our sins and alive in Christ then act like
it. Offer ourselves up for righteousness only, never again for sin. Everyone is a slave to
something in life, we should now choose to be a slave for Christ. It is paradoxical but the only
true way to have freedom in life is when our lives are an altar to God.
Moving into chapter seven, Paul focuses on two main points. The first point is being
released from the constraints of the Law and now belonging to Christ. His second point is about
the Law, sin, and how they relate to each other. I believe he is also mainly speaking to an
audience of Jews because he does mention he is speaking to those who know the Law. So it is
very unlikely that the Gentiles would be the target audience for most of this chapter. The Law is
compared to a man or woman in a marriage, committed to it until death. This is what Paul says
happens to us when we choose to believe and follow Jesus. When we accept Christ into our
hearts, baptized by water, the blood of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit we are a new creation.
“For when we were in the realm of the flesh,[
f
] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at
work in us, so that we bore fruit for death.
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have
4
Putrawan, Bobby Kurnia, Alisaid Prawiro Negoro, and Daryanto Daryanto. 2022. “Reading
Romans 6:1-4 to a New Life.”
International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious
Understanding
9, no. 7 (July): 212–26.
https://doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v9i7.3776
.
been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way
of the written code”. (Romans 7:5-6).
5
Each and every single person who knew the Law could
not possibly uphold it because we are human and the temptations of sin are too great for our flesh
to resist. This leads me to our next where Paul talks about his individual struggle with the war
waged between the spirit and the flesh that goes on in each person's life as a believers. The
reason why we could never perfectly follow the law is because we are not spiritual but of the
flesh. Paul then writes an interesting couple of verses in the first person that, in my opinion,
summarizes the battles that go on in every person's mind throughout their life when struggling
with sin. Paul is essentially describing himself before his relationship with Jesus. “ The
significance of Paul's use of this way of viewing himself should not be overlooked, either. He
portrays himself in this manner in order to move his readers to agree that the condemnation
worked by the Law is still applicable to them, even though it has been overcome extrinsically in
Christ”.
6
Paul acknowledges and gives praise to God that through Jesus Christ he can be
delivered from losing battle with the flesh that conflicts with our desire to obey and serve God. If
we keep our minds on things of the spirit we are capable of defeating our flesh every single day
we are alive. I do also think it is important to realize that if we do not strive daily to serve the
Lord then even as Christians we can revert back to our old ways of sin and we can get caught in
the lie that we have to earn our way back through our works.
Finally, we have chapter eight where Paul talks about the final piece. That is finding life
through the spirit in Christ Jesus. Because of what Jesus did we are able to follow the laws of the
5
“Romans 5-8:17 NIV - - Bible Gateway.” n.d. Www.biblegateway.com. Accessed October 10,
2023.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+5-8%3A17&version=NIV
.
6
Bruce, F F. 2008.
Romans : An Introduction and Commentary
. Nottingham, England: Inter-
Varsity Press ; Downers Grove, Ill.
Spirit and no longer the law that was imperfect because of the flesh. “For what the law was
powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[
k
] God did by sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[
l
] And so he condemned sin in the flesh,
in order that
the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the
flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3-4).
7
So what does it mean to live or walk
according to the spirit? Paul says what we set our minds on is what is key. If we look at our daily
lives when we decide to do anything, we make a decision in our minds on when, where, or even
if we will do whatever said task. As Christians, we must learn how to set our minds on what the
Spirit desires and how to crucify our own desires of the flesh. This is our sacrifice, how we take
up our own cross like Jesus did and follow him. “To be in Christ and to have the Spirit in you is
to enter the Spirit’s “realm,” a realm that is governed by the power of God’s future (Rom 8:9).
Just as living in the realm of the flesh has implications for human nature, so too does living in the
realm of Christ and Spirit. In this realm, humans are given new life, and this life is shaped by
Christ’s own likeness (7:6; 8:29)”.
8
But we also see how to not live as Christians and the
implications if we do. If we let our mind be governed by the flesh it will ultimately lead to our
death. Also, if we are being governed by the flesh we cannot submit to God and obey his law, we
cannot serve two masters in life and no amount of work in the flesh could ever hope to please
God and repay our debts.
In these four chapters, Paul helps to all realize that in the past humans have failed to meet
the standards of the Law and repay our debts with God. But what he also helps to realize people
7
“Romans 5-8:17 NIV - - Bible Gateway.” n.d. Www.biblegateway.com. Accessed October 10,
2023.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+5-8%3A17&version=NIV
.
8
Seifrid, Mark A. 1992. “The Subject of Rom 7:14-25.”
Novum Testamentum
34, no. 4: 313–33.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1561180
.
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at the time and to this day that there is hope for anyone's future in Christ. We as humans have
always been slaves to sin and the flesh since Adam and the Garden of Eden But after Jesus Christ
died on the cross, we were given a choice, either way, we are slaves to something, many people
today may believe they are free-living as they please but there are two options, two masters. You
can set your mind on things of the flesh which will mean nothing after death because nothing we
obtain is brought with you or we can set our minds on things of the Spirit which will echo for all
eternity. Jesus Christ has shown us the way by example what it takes to resist the temptations of
sin, overcome our flesh, and the grave, live a righteous life pleasing to God, and get to spend an
eternity with Him in heaven.
Works Cited
David E. Garland,
Romans: An Introduction and Commentary
, ed. Eckhard J. Schnabel, vol. 6,
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: IVP; IVP Academic: An Imprint of
InterVarsity Press, 2021), 188.
Putrawan, Bobby Kurnia, Alisaid Prawiro Negoro, and Daryanto Daryanto. 2022. “Reading
Romans 6:1-4 to a New Life.”
International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious
Understanding
9, no. 7 (July): 212–26.
https://doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v9i7.3776
.
Bruce, F F. 2008.
Romans : An Introduction and Commentary
. Nottingham, England: Inter-
Varsity Press ; Downers Grove, Ill.
Seifrid, Mark A. 1992. “The Subject of Rom 7:14-25.”
Novum Testamentum
34, no. 4: 313–33.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1561180
.
“Romans 5-8:17 NIV - - Bible Gateway.” n.d. Www.biblegateway.com. Accessed October 10,
2023.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+5-8%3A17&version=NIV
.
Kyle B. Wells,
“4 Ezra and Romans 8:1–13: The Liberating Power of Christ and the Spirit,”
in
Reading Romans in Context: Paul and Second Temple Judaism
, ed. Ben C. Blackwell, John K.
Goodrich, and Jason Maston (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 106.